Miniature spring sockets such as those sold by AMP, Incorporated, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania under AMP Part No. 331677 comprise a resilient spring contact within an exterior sleeve. These sockets are especially suitable for insertion in a printed circuit board wherein leads of appropriate circuit board elements are subsequently inserted in the sockets. A hand tool for inserting the sockets in circuit boards is sold under AMP Part No. 59940. The sockets are supplied to the tool on a carrier strip which is a plastic ribbon having the sockets mounted at intervals therealong. The ribbon includes a series of apertures, and the tool has an advancing mechanism which serially engages in the apertures for feeding the carrier strip through the tool. The tool includes a reciprocating ram which drives the sockets from the carrier strip and through a tubular inserter which guides the sockets to the tool tip for insertion in the circuit board.
These miniature spring sockets are available in different series which differ in outer dimension for reception in different size holes in the circuit board. Within each series the sockets are available in different lengths to accommodate different board thicknesses and different circuit board elements. Heretofore, the insertion tool was especially adapted to work with a particular length socket of a particular series, and a different tool was required for each different series and length of socket. There has been a need for a socket insertion tool which could easily be converted to work with a series of miniature spring sockets having different lengths. There has also been a need for a socket insertion tool which could easily be converted to accommodate several different series of sockets having different diameters.